Minor’s rapist convicted in 5 days
RAJ’S FASTEST TRIAL After the 4-year-old identified the perpetrator, the convict was awarded life imprisonment THE PREVIOUS FASTEST TRIAL IN A RAPE CASE TOOK PLACE IN 2005 WHEN A JODHPUR COURT TOOK 11 DAYS TO
CONVICT THE ACCUSED
JAIPUR: On February 2, a fouryear-old girl in Jaipur’s JK Lone Hospital identified a man who had raped her three days earlier after seeing nine mug shots of possible suspects pasted on a white sheet of paper. Five days later, the process was repeated in court. The result was Rajasthan’s fastest trial in a rape case.
A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act court in Sikar district completed the trial in five working days, and on February 11, awarded a term of life imprisonment until death to the man after finding him guilty, said public prosecutor Shivratan Sharma.
“The trial began on February 5 and concluded around 8pm on Monday. It took only five working days for the judge to pronounce the man guilty of the heinous crime,” Sharma said.
The speed displayed in this case is an exception, not the norm in a country where there were 133,000 rape cases pending at the end of 2016 according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Although both state governments and the Centre have repeatedly promised speedy trials in rape cases, many drag on for years. The previous fastest trial in a rape case in the state took place in 2005 when a Jodhpur court took 11 working days to convict an auto rickshaw driver and his accomplice in the rape of a German woman. In another case, an Alwar court finished the trial in the rape of a German woman by Bitti Mohantry, son of a senior Odisha police officer, in 15 days.
In the Sikar case, the fouryear-old girl was found in a burial ground around 9 pm on January 30, a few furlongs away from where she lived with her parents in a shanty, said police sub-inspector Surendra Kumar Saini, who investigated the case.
“She was missing for two hours when her parents began looking for her. They found her in the burial ground with a man later identified as Karan. The girl was bleeding and the man got injured when he tried to escape. Both were taken to hospital. Later, doctors referred the girl to JK Lone Hospital and the man to Sikar’s district hospital,” the police officer said. The Khatu police station registered a case against the suspect, who does not use a surname, on January 31, on the complaint given by the girl’s family. The man was arrested the same day and was sent to judicial custody the next day. He is from Gujarat and belongs to the Kacchi Mali caste. He lives with his aunt’s family. The girl’s parents exchange utensils for old clothes as they go around villages.
On February 2, police officer Saini went to Jaipur to record the girl’s statement. The process in which she identified the man from the mug shots was recorded on camera and the CD of this was presented in court. Prosecutor Sharma said the girl was brought to court on February 7 where she again identified the suspected rapist from the mug shots.
“We took the case under the case officer scheme, a programme in which police officers ensure that the witnesses don’t turn hostile so that they get a conviction, and finished the investigation in four days,” said Amandeep Singh Kapoor, Sikar’s superintendent of police. He added that the charge sheet was filed on February 4.
Child rights activist Rakesh Tiwari said, “The government machinery needs to bring justice to children whose parents don’t report the cases...in the rural areas, offenders silence parents with money or muscle power. Police needs to prevent such compromises and ensure those cases are also reported and perpetrators brought to justice,” he said.